Texas Equine Veterinary Association

www.texasequineva.com • Page 27 Do you remember the things during childhood that made your father special? Perhaps it was the sound of his voice whispering good night, the way his footsteps sounded across the floor as he approached your room, or the look on his face that meant you'd better straighten up. Or perhaps it was his smell—the way he smelled in the morning when he hugged you before leaving for work. Usually it was just his shaving cream, cologne, or deodorant, but it was a fresh scent, and it was Dad. Depending on what your father did for a living, it might be in sharp contrast to the smell he came home with at night. I hadn't realized how conditioned our children had become to the rituals of life until the other evening when I returned from work to find a houseful of little girls. My own girls were having some friends over for a slumber party. There they were, eleven girls between the ages of four and nine, all talking continuously. All of the details were well planned. I started to work right away on the tent that we were to pitch atop the trampoline. Can you think of anything cooler than sleeping in a tent on a trampoline? Five or six of the girls came over to help me set it up. Our oldest, Emili, was next to me, helping hold the things needed for assembly. She hugged me and told me she was glad I was her dad. Soon, another girl was close to me, holding a rope. I noticed she had a huge frown on her face and was holding her nose. When I asked what was wrong, she said, "You stink, bad." Funny, Emili just hugged me and hadn't mentioned a thing. I just figured the other kid was a soft-nose and went on with the tent assembly. But a minute later, another kid was close by, and I noticed the same look. "What's wrong with you?" I asked. "I don't mean to be rude, Mr. Brock, but you smell worse than anything in the world," she said. BO BROCK, DVM, DABVP From "Crowded in the Middle of Nowhere" written by TEVA Founding Member and Current Vice President, Bo Brock, DVM, DABVP. Available for purchase on Amazon. STINKY DAD I decided it was time for a little research. I walked over to our middle child and gave her a "pick up and swing you" hug. She just smiled and hugged me back. Not a word about my aroma. Next, I went over to Kimmi, our youngest, and did the same. Again, not a mention of any BO (no pun intended). Some of the other girls thought the spinning hug looked like fun and wanted to take a turn, but when they came down from the spin, most said something about how bad Abbi's dad smelled. Admittedly, it had been a stinky day. Pigs, postmortems, cow palpations, abscesses, and who knows what else had been on the agenda that day. Picking up the pungent odors one at a time, my nose didn't seem to register them. I'm sure all were bound together by a layer of perspiration after a near-one-hundred-degree day. It made me stop and reflect on my girls' lack of reaction. They probably think that every father should come home smelling like a carcass. It probably even comforts them—here comes Daddy home from work, and, if everything is OK, he will smell like manure. I began to think about other conditions they consider normal that others might not: They can eat a hamburger while watching a calf being born. They can pick up blood-soaked gauze while helping clean up and never bat an eye. They have seen more shots given than most people who are fifty years old. They have helped me do C-sections on cows. There will be a time that such a stinky dad will be a huge embarrassment to them, I am sure. But when that phase passes, and they are grown-ups with kids of their own, I am sure they will come back to finding some strange degree of comfort in the smells that an animal hospital fills their noses with.

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